4 Tips to Communicate Well with Guys at Work or School

My first job out of college was working on Capitol Hill, and in one early project I had to coordinate getting information from a lot of decision makers. So to make sure nothing got dropped, I also needed to ask a lot of questions. I worked closely with Ryan, another guy my age. We started off with a fine relationship. But as the project went on, he didn’t seem to like me very much. He became quite short with me and would avoid conversations that weren’t strictly related to the project.

I chalked it up to a personality conflict. Boy, was I wrong.

I’ve now spent 15 years interviewing and surveying more than 10,000 men and teenage guys to find out how they process and hear things that we say in our personal relationshipsand work lives. If you’re a young woman starting to interact with guys in working settings – whether that is your first professional job, the mock trial team in college, or study groups in high school – knowing a few key tips can make a lot of difference. Here are four:

Tip #1: Recognize that (contrary to what you may have heard) men don’t actually like blunt directness

Months after that project, I came to find out: Ryan thought I was constantly challenging him. I had heard that “men appreciate directness” and had never noticed that, no, actually, men appreciate respectful directness. He was taking all my “direct” information-gathering questions (“What about this? What about that? Why did you do that?”), as challenges to his decision-making.

Even worse, I was often asking those questions in front of other people in the office. He wanted those people to think he was good at his job–and felt I was questioning his judgment in front of them. And I was clueless that I was coming across as someone no male colleague would want to work with.

Thankfully there are some very easy ways to ask questions and communicate in a way that honors how guys process things – and delivers better results for us as well.

Tip #2: How we phrase questions with guys is really (really) crucial

While guys may look strong and confident on the outside, there’s often a lot of vulnerability on the inside. Essentially, men (and teenage boys) are always questioning whether they’re any good at what they do – and hoping that no-one finds out that they aren’t as confident as they look. So as you can imagine it is very easy for them to see your questions as calling them out! Since our simple requests for more information could be perceived as a challenge or a “gotcha,” be mindful to phrase things in a way that doesn’t hit that nerve.

Here’s one of the most common examples. When a woman starts a sentence with “Why did you do . . . ?” (e.g. “Why did you do it that way, Brian?”) he might be hearing “Why did you do it that way, you idiot?” I know that might sound crazy, but that was the case for the vast majority of men and boys on my surveys!

In fact, just recently one college freshman told me that a girl in a project group had asked, “Why did you choose that picture for the title slide?”, and he found himself feeling defensive because he had put in a lot of work. He seemed quite surprised by my suggestion that she could literally have just been curious – not challenging.

So when you need to ask “why,” try always starting with affirmation: “I know you took a lot of time pulling up images for the PowerPoint.” Then ask the question in a way that won’t be seen as challenging their competence: “I’m curious; what were the reasons you settled on that one?” Of course you might in fact disagree with his direction! And in that case, try, “I might have gone in another direction; could you help me understand where you’re coming from?” It’s automatically a more respectful way of approaching it.

Tip #3: Get to the point – men want to hear the conclusion up front

The male brain is generally wired to think things through internally, while the female brain is wired exactly the opposite: we generally think things through by talking it through. In fact, it’s actually quite difficult for a man to fully think things through while you or he are talking. Even more crucial: unless he knows where you’re going, it is difficult for him to fully listen! So state the conclusion up front.

One man told me he employed a lot of teenagers in his ice cream shops, and was a bit frustrated that when female employees called to tell him something, they tended to want to tell the whole story before telling him the conclusion. Which made it extremely uncomfortable to listen! As he put it, “While she’s telling the story of this security problem that just happened, I don’t know if what she’s going to end with is ‘so everything is fine’ or ‘the shop burned down!”

Instead, a guy will much better process your story if you said something like this: “So, we had a problem and we had to call security due to a fight. But it’s all ok. Here’s what happened and the steps I took. Do you want to hear any more?” State the conclusion up front, a few of the details and ask if they want to hear any more. Otherwise it’s difficult for the guys to listen because they don’t know how—or when—it’s going to end.

Tip #4: Show that you know and value the difference between social time and work time

Girls will often ease into a study session or work meeting with a bit of personal conversation. In our minds, it builds better working relationships and gets social questions out of the way so we can concentrate on work. (“Hey, is everything okay after your fender-bender?”) But guys can get frustrated. When they are in do-things work mode and you appear to be in social mode (even if you aren’t!), annoyance and frustration can simmer under the surface. Even worse, guys have told me that switching back and forth from “work world” to “personal world” can be hard and disconcerting.

More importantly, if it happens too often (or for more than a token minute or two), he will perhaps start thinking that you’re not taking the project seriously. Guys have (privately) told me that they start thinking they may need to keep the big jobs out of your hands. And think about it: you would have the same feeling too, right? If you’re in turbo get-things-done mode and some guy wants to spend 15 minutes talking about his rock band, you would have the same thought!

The difference is that when guys are in “work mode,” any social chit-chat can be similarly frustrating. So watch for a guy’s cues and take it from there. If he asks, while waiting for the meeting to start, “what did you do this weekend?” then you have an opening to briefly talk social stuff. But otherwise, err on the side of being “all business” when you’re actually working with guys.

Learning how a guy’s brain is wired to process, hear and perceive information is one of the best tools for building great working relationships. If you practice a few of these subtle communication tips early, you’ll be way ahead of the curve as you interact with guys for years to come.

Looking for encouragement for your life and relationships? Learn about the little things that make a big difference in every relationship, from marriages to parenting. Subscribe to updates from Shaunti here!

Shaunti Feldhahn loves sharing eye-opening information that helps people thrive in life and relationships. She herself started out with a Harvard graduate degree and Wall Street credentials but no clue about life. After an unexpected shift into relationship research for average people like her, she now is a popular speaker and author of best-selling books about men, women and relationships. (Including For Women Only, For Men Only, and the groundbreaking The Good News About Marriage).

Comments

I’m not sure I get your post. Besides the fact it is full of stereotypes, shouldn’t we all treat each other with respect? Some may think this sort of advice is fine for marriage—-these women aren’t married to these guys—-each should play by the same set of rules.

Points 1 and 2. I was an extraordinarily quiet person in high school. It was very rare that I would speak up. I remember working in a group to do some physics problems. I was good at doing problems in my head and saw immediately a guy in my group had done some calculations incorrectly. I told him his math was wrong, in the same way any other guy in the group would have told him. I’m sure I said it in a nice tone. This particular guy was obviously bothered by a girl telling him he was wrong, but honestly it was his problem if he perceived disrespect by my correcting his math. Maybe he should have told the teacher he didn’t like working in mixed gender groups and having a girl correct his math?

In your power point example do men owe women the same tone of respect? What if instead of asking him about why he chose some slides you question the accuracy of the data in the power point. If the data is wrong, sure tone is important, but if he included inaccurate data, if he feels bad then he is responsible.

Point #3 Maybe the shop owner should have told employees up front that he just couldn’t possibly be bothered to listen to a female that was more conversational. Perhaps his ice cream shop would have been better staffed by the stereotypical monosyllabic sullen teenage boys.

I have made hundreds of phone calls to doctors as a nurse when their patients have a condition change. It isn’t necessarily in my purview to come to a conclusion. It is the doctor’s responsibility to listen to all data I find relevant to the problem. He or she should not only listen but be paying enough attention to figure out if more information is needed. Some conversations will be longer than others, depending on the patient.

Number 4…Stereotype….there are guys that like to hold court at work and if you don’t listen to their story, you are perceived as disrespectful. A few years ago I had a root canal done and the dentist and dental assistant both did social chitchat that had nothing to do with me for the entire procedure. They were both male and what they did was professionally inappropriate.

But beyond this I wonder what a young male would think when he read this? Does he think if he wants to go to med school that every female student or female instructor is there to stroke his ego, but the male instructor can be abrupt? The med student might be required to go through his thought process aloud for either a male or female instructor. I think that has been true for many fields for many years even when it was mostly men in these roles.There is a saying I’ve heard , prepare the child for the path, and not prepare the path for the child. How do your post at all prepare a young man for a path, if he can just flop around and be constantly irritated by women.

How would you even have a classroom discussion at any level if one wasn’t expected to talk through a problem?

I’ve been in a supervisory role for many years. Sure tone goes along way. I’m not at work though to stroke the male ego to get them to do the things they actually were hired to do. Mostly this isn’t a problem. If it is it has usually been with older men, or men from other cultures who are less respectful of women.